IGN.com confirmed with DC that there will indeed be more than 52 in September with the addition of the “Night of the Owls” spinoff Talon, the fantasy Sword of Sorcery (anchored by “Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld” with a “Beowulf” back-up), The Phantom Stranger and the DCU/Wildstorm-merging Team Seven. Each title will debut with a zero issue, and then continue in October with #1.

“We’ve announced one cancellation already, which is Justice League International, and at this time, we’re looking at reviewing the rest of the line,” DiDio told Newsarama. “But one of the primary goals is to maintain the number 52 as the number of series that we’ll be doing on a continuing basis. […] One of the things we try to do in this case is, as the expression goes, [not] throw the baby out with the bath water. So if a series does go away, we want to make sure we have a proper place for the characters, because the idea of just bringing everything to an end or a close so that nobody else can use anything else from there is detrimental to the line and the universe that we’re building. So the primary goal here is, even if a book comes to an end, that there’s some aspect of that series that moves forward and still continues on.”

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29 Comments

Prophet Guard

Third Wave titles and their Second Wave counterparts in my opinion:
Talon – Ravagers (event spinoffs)
Sword of Sorcery – Batman Inc. (titles with a short lifespan before the relaunch)

Maybe those two new comics won’t be so bad. It’s just that I’ve never really seen much of Amethyst before the relaunch so that’s a good idea like Batman Incorporated. As for the Talon, it could probably be better than The Ravagers.

Andrew Mathieu

While I’ll miss JLI,at least a part of the series lives on in the new 52. I have to say I respect Didio’s view on cancellation. It’s leaps and bounds better than Marvel’s ending a series and that’s basically it for the v
characters, team, and sometimes even creators.

That doesn’t say there’ll be more than 52 titles at all. It says they’ve announced one cancellation and they’re looking over the rest of the line. Sounds to me like we’ll learn the other 3 cancellations when September solicits are released.

RavenKDM

I am a little confused about elements of this, So they advertise that Slade Wilson is on Team 7. But I’m not seeing anyone on that cover with an eye patch? Only thing I can figure is that this is a flashback series about steve trevor prior to his being involved with the Justice League, and Cole prior to his being on the run and leaving the military.

Personally I was really excited about an espionage series staring Slade Wilson, Cole Cash, Amanda Waller, Dinah Lance, and John Lynch. But then I see that cover, and it looks like a bad 90’s comicbook deathsquad..

And I was actually interested to see a series about a Talon who slips free of the Court, plotted by Snyder. UNTIL I saw that costume. WTH is that?! that doesn’t look like any of the Talon’s we’ve seen so far.

Chris

Ragnell

RavenKDM — It’s a prequel series, set in the “earlier days” of the DCU according to the Didio interview on the main site. So, this is Slade before he lost his eye, and Dinah before she formed the BOP.

I’m with you, though. They’ve been hinting around this and I love the concept and lineup but that cover looks terrible. It’s ugly and generic. Even with the list of names in front of me, I can BARELY identify which character is which. (I can ID the women and Grifter.) I hope the interiors are better, but that’s Merino’s signature so it’s not a different artist.

catsmeow

Everytime they announce new series, I cross my fingers for the long-awaited return of Stephanie and Cassandra, but still nothing. Oh well. I will continue to read Catwoman and New Guardians and nothing more.

Brian from Canada

Didio’s approach is the right one — especially given the work they’ve put in reworking the characters for the new 52.

But if there’s three series that need to go, I think it should be:
• Deathstroke, because Slade’s focusing a lot on his past, has no villain, and can be a leader of Suicide Squad
• Voodoo, because the Daemonite story would mix with Grifter & Stormwatch
and
• Batman & Robin — because the plot seems to overlap too much into Batman Incorporated and is just too bland as a book on its own.

Donnie Darko

Didio and his crew came in determined to shake things up, and for the most part they succeeded, only everything was broken when they were done. I look at the New 52 as an inadvertant admission of that. The sad thing is that it was totally fixable, but that would have required brand NEW LEADERSHIP.

X

John

The new 52 universe just screams 1990s Marvel / Image to me. I already lived through that era once and have no desire to return to it, but I’ve been a DC fan for almost 25 years so I guess I’m just an old hat who feels disenfranchised. I’m sure a lot of long-time pre-Crisis readers felt the same way back in the 80s. The spur-of-the-moment, haphazard way they ended the post-crisis universe didn’t help to win me over, either. Those characters and their long-time readers deserved better. If sales are up, thats what really counts anyway, i guess.

I am really enjoying the supernatural books like Dial H, Marie Lavoux and the relaunch of Nightforce (one of my favorite series from the past!). Phantom Stranger has a lot of potential. This would be an opportune time to reintroduce Tim hunter into the Universe, too. With the Harry potter franchise riding off into the sunset, it shouldn’t be as much of an issue for them now as it was then. Really shouldn’t have been an issue anyway, since Tim –was– the original Harry Potter.

Mike

Faust

I was just thinking – with September now having more than 52 series, maybe they will have a few more new number 1’s in October that wont get a zero issue, because there was already to much to publish? It just seems weird the second wave had 6 and this third wave only has 4. They will still be in line with these four new 1’s. And they can cancel more than 3 low selling titles. I was thinking the other 2 may be the JLA and Robins titles.

bu

Look at it this way. New 52 could will definitely last another year. After that it can be canned at any moment. Sales will south across the board if they run out of Wildstorm characters and titles to reincarnate into the new DCU proper.